For most of us, the Arctic remains almost as much a terra incognito as it was to European and North American mapmakers in the early 20th century.

The Arctic is one of the rare places on Earth where few people live and few visit, even though there is evidence that it has been inhabited for more than 4,000 years. The first European contact with indigenous people in the region occurred at least 1,000 years ago.

The age of air travel has brought it “closer” in travel time than it had been when ships and dogsleds were the main means of transportation.

Its forbidding and unforgiving climate, months of darkness followed by months of daylight, and its vast expanse are an exotic definition of our northern-ness. It is that ice-and-snow leitmotif that the Canadian Olympic Committee is highlighting in its commercials for the Rio 2016 Games.

Still, the Arctic hovers beyond the experience and often even interest of most of us who live well below the 70th parallel.

But for those who have been there, it leaves an indelible mark. Robert Watt is among a small but diverse group of British Columbians who have worked there.

In the late 1990s, the former chief curator of the Vancouver Museum was Canada’s chief herald and had been asked to help elected and hereditary leaders come up with a flag and coat of arms for Nunavut, which officially became a territory on April 1, 1999. He made five trips over three years to Iqaluit, Cape Dorset, Rankin Inlet and Baker Lake during the project.

“I will never forget the people and the places,” he says. “The Inuit were so welcoming and the landscape is just astonishing.”

Among his clearest memories is meeting in a small room in Iqaluit during the final stages of the flag’s creation.

“There was a long and fascinating discussion about whether the inukshuk should have one leg or two — the one-sies won — and as we were wrestling with colours, we were each working with a big kit of magic markers.

“The fumes got so bad that we had to open the door to the outside every once in a while, and the temperature — this was in late April — was minus 40 Celsius. The fumes didn’t stand a chance.”

In the past few decades, the creation of Nunavut and the 2014 discovery of one of Sir John Franklin’s long-lost ships, the Erebus, are among the few times that the Arctic has been front-page news in Canada.

But all of that may be changing, and rather more quickly than anyone might have imagined.

That’s because if climate change.

There is room for debate about why the climate is changing so rapidly and why the ice is retreating so fast. But what’s not in dispute is that it is.

Already, 2016 is another record-setting year for warm temperatures and vanishing sea ice. It will also be a record year for the number of people who will visit the Arctic because the once elusive and treacherous Northwest Passage is now almost ice-free during the summer months.

It is extraordinary to contemplate that until 2000, only 77 ships had navigated through the passage. But between then and the end of 2014, there were 142 journeys, including cruise ships, motor yachts and even rowboats.

There are also cargo vessels that have used it as a shortcut from Asia to Europe, avoiding the Panama Canal.

What does the increased marine traffic mean in this fragile environment? What does an influx of 1,000 tourists mean for communities like Cambridge Bay (population 1,477) or Pond Inlet (population 1,549)?

What does this changing climate mean for any of the inhabitants of the Arctic — the people, polar bears, narwhals, walruses and smaller aquatic, land and air species?

Who is going to regulate the traffic or the resource developers? Who is going to be alert to smugglers and terrorists?

And, inevitably, there’s the question: Who owns the Arctic, anyway?

For 12 days starting Friday, August 12, I will be one of a group of privileged visitors, including two scientists from the Vancouver Aquarium, on a 96-passenger expedition ship operated by Squamish-based One Ocean Expeditions making a journey through the Northwest Passage.

To follow along, a diary of the Arctic journey with photos will be posted on The Vancouver Sun’s website, as well as on social media and in the newspaper, as frequently as the spotty Internet service allows.

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